Originally Posted by
KennyBSAT
The best value U.S.-Europe after October 15 is AA off peak sAAver awards at 20K each way in coach. But the only 2 week trip that currently works with that runs into November. You can turn 14,500 UR points into British Airways Avios and fly JFK-BOS-DUB on AA and Aer Lingus but you will have to call BA to check availability.
+1 to this...only thing I'll add is that you can query Qantas online (and *maybe* United - I don't know for sure) to view EI availability before you phone BA. I use Award Nexus to do this.
Are you looking for coach availability or J/F? Or do you care? When I've booked EI in the past, I've sometimes seen it wide-open in Y but zero availability in J. Then, a few months later, I'll see someone posting that they saw the opposite. EI's systems seem a bit more unpredictable than most.
Avios is distance-based, so if you're starting from SFO I'd probably just try to redeem the whole thing on AA for either 40k or 50k total.
Seems like Oneworld plus EI would show the greatest availability into Ireland and out of Spain. I'd probably start there and then jump over to UA if one of the directions isn't showing anything you like. You could move some UR points to UA if necessary.
US and DL don't allow one-way awards. The 90k DL is theoretically enough for an open-jaw award although I honestly don't know Delta's rules on open-jaws.